


Move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass

by lukrezius



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: High School AU, M/M, Suburbia, Suburbs, Teenage AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6258424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukrezius/pseuds/lukrezius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>joshler au inspired by arcade fire's the suburbs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics are here; http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/arcadefire/thesuburbs.html

The swing creaked as Josh rocked back onto his heels, then his toes. Heels, toes, heels, toes. 

He imagined he could feel the hot asphalt through the soles of his beat-up sneakers. 

He could hear the thumping bass of loud music from somewhere, probably several blocks away. 

The slow crunch of footsteps alerted Josh to the presence of someone wandering up through the pebbled path. He could hardly see at this distance in the dusk, but the figure kicked at the dry, dusty grass by the side of the path. 

"Hey." Josh called out, making himself known to the guy. The kid walking looked up, and Josh recognised him, vaguely. He lived on the other side of town, maybe.

The boy didn't reply, but he wandered past Josh and sat down on the swing next to him. Now that he was still, Josh could see that he had the skinny, feral, underfed look of many of the kids in this part of the suburbs. This probably wasn't helped by the impressive black eye the kid had.

"I'm Josh. Josh Dun."

"Tyler." His voice was lower than Josh had expected. Maybe he was older than he looked.

"Do you not like shirts?" Tyler suddenly said, without looking up at Josh. 

Josh considered himself, wearing nothing but shorts, sneakers and a cap. 

"Not really. It's hot, anyway."

"It's night time."

"It's still hot."

They sat in silence for a while. Tyler tipped back his head in an attempt to pick out some stars from the light pollution. 

Josh looked at the curve of his neck, the bump in his throat. 

"We'll probably fight each other, one day." Tyler said pensively.   
It wasn't unlikely, as in general, kids joined one of the gangs in the neighbourhood when they stopped caring about school or their parents or their livers. 

"Maybe." Josh replied, slowly. He'd stayed out of them for the most part, mainly due to the fact that he was relatively new to the suburbs, having only moved into his current house when he was fifteen.

And, as they lived in different sides of town, they would most likely not be on the same team.

Tyler moved suddenly again, reaching down and stripping off his black tank top. He was tanned, Josh could see, in the orange light from the streetlamps, and he caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his upper underarm before Tyler bought his arms back down to his sides.

Tyler's hollow chest rose and fell. His ribs were bumps in the long expanse of his sides. Josh's mouth felt dry.

"Can you drive? You're older than me." Tyler asked, turning to face Josh, the chains of the swing clanking together.

"Yeah, I can drive. Haven't got a car, though." 

"I can get you one." 

Tyler stood, grabbing his shirt, and abruptly ran off, into the night. 

Josh sat there, more than a little stunned, before getting to his feet and sprinting after the other.

"Tyler?"

"Come on, redhead."

Tyler stole his mother's car. Josh wasn't sure how he felt about that, but something about Tyler's wild, dark eyes and expectant smile compelled him to take the keys and slide into the driver's seat.

"Where should we go?" Josh was whispering now, nervous of the looming shape of Tyler's house outside the car. 

"Are there any all-night gas stations your side of town?" Tyler whispered back. 

-

Josh parked the car in the small, empty parking lot outside the store. He could hear cicadas screeching in the shadows as they made their way to the bright whiteness of the store.

Once inside, Josh took the time to fully look at Tyler as he followed the other boy around the store.

He was tanned, though less than Josh'd thought, and had the nicest eyelashes he'd seen for a long time. Josh wondered if he ought to really be thinking about another boy's eyelashes. Tyler's hair was neat, surprisingly, though he kept messing it up with his hands. 

It looked soft.

Jesus. Pull yourself together, Josh thought. 

In the harsh light, the bruise around Tyler's eye looked even worse, going from black to purple to blue to green to yellow, and there was even a little cut through Tyler's eyebrow. 

"What happened? To your eye, I mean."

"What's the first rule of fight club?" Tyler replied, locking eyes with Josh.

They stared at each other for a long time. Several minutes. Weeks even. 

Josh dared Tyler to buy some condoms.

He was greatly impressed by the fearlessness with which Tyler approached the girl lazily chewing gum, half asleep behind the cash register. He felt his ears grow pink and his cheeks hot as the girl glanced between them as she slid the condoms over the counter. Maybe he shouldn't have dared him to buy them. What if it has given Tyler the wrong idea?

Tyler was grinning like a laughing skull as they left the store.   
"You want to go home now?" Josh asked him, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. 

"Nah. Got somewhere to show you."

-

That 'somewhere' turned out to be beneath the underpass, sitting in the shadows at the top of the concrete slope, beneath the road stretching across the other highway.

They watched the traffic, the kind of sparse, fast vehicles you only get at one in the morning.

Josh took off his cap, hooking it over one of his bent knees. "Won't your parents mind you being out this late?" He asked Tyler.

"No. Won't yours?"

"They're out of town. What about the car?" He pressed, as Tyler slanted his eyes up to meet his.

"What about it?" 

Josh paused. "Nevermind."

They sat in silence for a while, the stench of asphalt and the roar of oncoming traffic filling their senses. Josh started a little, as he felt Tyler touch the shaved side of his head.

"If I smoked, I think I'd smoke right now." Tyler said thoughtfully. "Do you smoke?"

"I have smoked. But I don't smoke."

Tyler nodded, this made sense to him. His hands were still in Josh's hair, fingers running through the dyed red mess of hair. Josh turned his head to look at Tyler, and realised how close their faces were. He felt Tyler breath out at the same time as him.

Tyler's hand slid from his hair to the side of his face.

"Who hit you?" Josh asked.

Tyler kissed him.

Josh pulled back in surprise, the other boy's hand falling down to the cement between them. 

"You should see the other guy." Tyler said, with little humour, in answer to Josh's question. 

"Why did you-" Josh stared at him.

"I like you. I thought you wanted to." Tyler shrugged, looking away. He tapped his foot on the ground. 

"Tyler." He looked back at Josh, and the latter pressed their lips back together. Tyler swung a leg over Josh, straddling him, and deepened the kiss.

"Josh," Tyler said between kisses, a little out of breath. "We're not going to be using one of those condoms here, of all places."

Josh snorted suddenly, leaning back on his heels, careful to brace himself against the slope of hill down to the highway. "Don't worry."

A car roared overhead, and Josh leaned back in.

-

"Are you coming?"

"You bet." Josh got to his feet, dusted himself off. Tyler was standing in the grass, and Josh dropped off the edge of the cement to stand next to him. They were both breathless, lips flushed, and hair ruffled.

Tyler took his hand, and they picked their way through the long grass back to the car. Before they got in, Josh took Tyler's face in his hands. 

"Who hit you?" he gently ran his thumb over the edge of the bruise.

Tyler looked into his eyes for a moment, before tilting his head away from the other boy. Josh's hands dropped to his sides.

"A guy from my school." Tyler said, reluctantly, looking from Josh's face to his shoes.

"Who?"

"You wouldn't know him."

"So tell me his name." At this, Tyler shrugged.

"S'called Alex. Alex Ford. He's a big guy. Probably got some latent homosexual feelings for me."

"Who doesn't, huh." Josh said, stepping away from Tyler and around to the other side of the car. 

-

The next day, at Tyler's school, he saw Alex Ford sporting a thick bandage across his nose, a bust lip, and not one, but two black eyes.

Tyler looked at his arm, where he saw slightly faded biro; a telephone number, and 'call me' written in surprisingly neat handwriting. Tyler was practically glowing.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this was a bit rambly?? tell me what you think!!!?? ily if you read this


End file.
